DRUGS/HOUSE OF REPS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Patients with life-threatening conditions would get the right to try unproven drugs under legislation that passed Tuesday [5-22-18] in the House and now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The passage of the so-called Right to Try bill, in a 250-169 vote, ends months of debate over whether expanded access to investigational drugs is compassionate or fuels false hope. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), passed in the Senate in August. Most patients already get access to unproven medicines under a compassionate-use program overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, agency officials say. But the bill would essentially skirt the FDA’s normal approval process to get trial medicines more rapidly to patients with life-threatening illnesses. Republicans pushed for the change, which Mr. Trump supported in his State of the Union address, saying it would give patients access to non-FDA-approved drugs before it is too late. Some Democrats and patient groups have argued it would usurp the FDA and leave patients vulnerable to dangerous and possibly sham treatments.”
-Stephanie Armour, “House Approves Giving Terminally Ill Quicker Access to Experimental Drugs,” The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2018 5:43 pm